Hi, hopefully someone can help... I have a Mac OSX version 10.5.8. Approx 9 months ago started having problems with it... Spinning ball, Safari not responding. The problem starts slowly but soon gets worse and worse... and eventually other programs are neither responding (as finder and preview), making it impossible to use the computer. Only option is to delete and re-install everything, then my mac works fine for approx 4 to 6 weeks until the same things happens AGAIN. Have deleted and reinstalled 5 times now!!!! Anyone has any idea what is causing this problem? Any suggestions? Done hardware search and nothing seems to be wrong, neither with the RAM. I have tried to use different browsers and same problem happens. Thankful for any help I can get!
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Spinning ball... Not responding, starting with Safari
- Thread starter anna123mac
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See this before with the hard drive, unfortunately the SMART reporting feature will only work when the drive really has come to the end of its life.
When it starts to play up try the Verify Disk option in Disk Utility in case the Hard Drive is failing.
When it starts to play up try the Verify Disk option in Disk Utility in case the Hard Drive is failing.
Probably the HD, but what does Activity Monitor tell you? Show all processes and click on %CPU to see if any process is using a large % of CPU.
Every move I do at the moment make the ball spin for like a minute... Anyway, I checked the disk utility/verify disk and it came up with the result: the volume Macintosh hd appears to be ok.
Also checked activity monitor/all processes... Most of the time safari or activity monitor is on top with 1.5-1.8 CPU. Sometimes kernel_task moves up to 3.6, also saw one called spindump (or something but it disappeared) and then windowserver (why window???) showed up with 6.8 but went back to 0.2. Don't know if this means anything to anyone but I just try to give as much info as possible, in case something can be read out of it. Was trying to play around a bit with the computer to see if much would happen to the CPU, safari eventually went up to 99...
I normally turn my computer off every night.
Also checked activity monitor/all processes... Most of the time safari or activity monitor is on top with 1.5-1.8 CPU. Sometimes kernel_task moves up to 3.6, also saw one called spindump (or something but it disappeared) and then windowserver (why window???) showed up with 6.8 but went back to 0.2. Don't know if this means anything to anyone but I just try to give as much info as possible, in case something can be read out of it. Was trying to play around a bit with the computer to see if much would happen to the CPU, safari eventually went up to 99...
I normally turn my computer off every night.
After all it seems to be something wrong with HD... I ran the extended hard ware test and error 4HDD/11/40000004: SATA (0,0). Have ran the same test in the past without error. Dunno why nothing showed up earlier. Think I have learned my lession about apple products 
Think I have learned my lession about apple products
What are you talking about? You do know that Apple doesn't make the HDDs? They're made by a 3rd party and can, as all other technical equipment, fail sooner or later. Therefore the important thing is to have backup.
If you're still under warranty, take a backup and give the Mac to Apple so they can give you a new HDD. If you out of waranty, do it yourself, it take only 30 minutes or so (incl restore from TM). Unfortunately only 1 year warranty... Well I guess you always get disappointed when you spend money on something and it doesn't work the way you expect it to. My experience has just not been so great when it comes to my MacBook or iPhone. Maybe I just have been very unlucky...